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Pratt Bishop Worrell 1876 - 1959

Biography by his son, Albert Cadwallader Worrell: Pratt Worrell completed all of the schooling that was available to him in Upper Providence, but, so far as we know, did not have any education beyond that. He did not like the life of a farmer and left the farm when he was 21. He started to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad on December 13, 1897. He first worked as station agent in some of the small towns on the railroad line to Baltimore, including a period in Swarthmore. A note in his very skimpy records says "Enter department clerk on June 24, 1901." This may have been the date on which he started working in Broad Street Station in Philadelphia.

Pratt Worrell was a quiet, and perhaps shy, man. He was not unfriendly, but was definitely not socially outgoing. He was inclined to be a listener rather than a talker, and most people had difficulty carrying on a conversation with him.

Pratt Bishop Worrell and Bertha May Cadwallader were married on April 27, 1910. The newlyweds took an apartment at 48 N. 54th St. in West Philadelphia. They had only one son, Albert Cadwallader, who was born on May 14, 1913 and named after his maternal grandfather.

Pratt and his family continued to live in the apartment until 1914 when he bought a new house at 5820 Cedarhurst Street in West Philadelphia. This was in the first block of houses in a new development between Baltimore Avenue and the Pennsylvania Railroad line and only two blocks from the city boundary with Delaware County. Within the next decade, the rest of the open space inside the city limits at this point was filled in with new row houses.